Graphic source: Times Online, Roger Boyes
As most of Europe has been slow to support the Coalition the war on terror increasingly comes home to roost. To wit: a clerical worker was named as Germany's first suicide bomber in Afghanistan.
Cueneyt Ciftci, 28, who was born in Freising, Bavaria to a family of Turkish immigrants, is believed to have driven a pick-up truck filled with explosives into a U.S. guard post.
German police trace him to a network that appears linked to radical Bavarian mosques and to a group arrested last September for preparing explosives to bomb Frankfurt airport.
The bomber married and had two children but more recently resigned his clerical position. His resignation seems to have been organized by Adem Yilmaz who is under arrest after police raids broke up his cell preparing for an attack on Frankfurt airport, Ramstein airbase, and other U.S. targets in Germany. The other cell members, Fritz Gelowicz and Daniel Schneider, were native Germans.
There appears to be connections between radical clergy, a mosque in Ulm in particular seems to have inspired many and the movement of preachers between Pakistan and Europe and the access to training camps close to the Afghan border have made some German Muslims regular pilgrims.
As Sarkosy has committed more troops to Afghistan, perhaps Merkel can plot a similar course. Europe should be committing more effort to security in the Middle East.
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